Women in Greece

The roles and status of women in ancient Greece are hard to asses since there is very little evidence from that period written or illustrated from a women’s perspective. Most literature and art from ancient Greece comes from men, thus making it hard to evaluate exactly what it was like to live has a women in those times. Sarah Pomeroy states in Goddesses, whores, wives and salves: women in classical antiquity "the study of women in ancient literature is the study of men's views of women and cannot become anything else." . This viewpoint is supported by many scholars in as stated in Ideology and “the status of Women” in Ancient Greece by Marilyn Katz. (pg 79) Pomeroy also suggest that This indisputable fact about ancient sources -of material authored by women we have only the fragments of a few women poets -has even led recently to the recommendation that the study of women in antiquity be refocused away from literature to culture. Otherwise "the study of women in ancient literature is the study of men's views of women and cannot become anything else." (pg 79 Ideology and “the status of Women” in Ancient Greece by Marilyn Katz.) This notion that women did not write literature we assume that women were consider inferior to men, and what they had to say was irrelevant. This idea is also introduced by Pomeroy, The notion that texts authored by men represent a "male" point of view is widely shared. This idea, however, not only introduces an artificial distinction between text and culture, but also implicitly relegates women to an entirely passive role in patriarchal society. (pg 79 Ideology and “the status of Women” in Ancient Greece by Marilyn Katz.) Thus its important when using literature such as Homers epic as evidence of women’s role and status during that time period were are critical of the conclusions we draw.
On the other hand there have been many assumption made of the role of women during ancient Greece from the evidence we do have. It was patricidal